Life “hereafter” – motives for renouncing the ideology and terminating the relationship to the scene

4.2.3 Life “hereafter” – motives for renouncing the ideology and terminating the

Other interviewees mentioned the same aspects, reflected by a subjective feeling of disorientation, antipathy or meaninglessness.

The two processes of renouncing the ideology on the one hand and breaking off contact with the radical milieu on the other frequently did not unfold simultaneously. Often social contact with the radical milieu continued even after the ideology had been renounced, or else the individuals adhered to their views even after they had broken off contact.

Discrepancies between the interviewees’ attitudes and their respective groups’ norms and ways of coping were a critical factor in tipping the scales in favour of getting out of a group, the two alternatives being that the interviewees deemed the group’s approach either “too soft”(Iu04, inactive extremist) or“too extreme”(Ri07, militant radical). They were generally looking for new like-minded contacts, and also quickly formed ties with a new group if they had been marginalised or excluded because their behaviour had been diametrically opposed to the previous group’s attitude or norms.

Drug-consuming rightists, for example, often migrated in droves into the so-called gabber scene (cf.

Appendix D, Fn. 2).

Those individuals who chose of their own accord to get out of a clique or scene were mostly driven by rather simple motives, their decision triggered considerably more often by a concrete event compared to those cases where they had renounced the group’s ideology³². In this latter case, they more often than not also ceased to identify with those persons who fully subscribed to the ideology they now perceived as irrational or “nonsensical”. Moreover, they broke off with the scene or clique in particular if contradictions arose, e. g. if the group did not practice what it preached or if the cohesion of the scene had been exposed as a “lie” or illusion, regardless of whether or not they had also – simultaneously or successively – dissociated themselves from the promoted ideology. Severe personal disappointment was another frequent reason for quitting.

Other experiences, like having to face the victims or one’s own appearance, also induced some of the interviewees to get out of the scene – like, for example, the skinhead who endorsed a rather right wing type of ideology:

“...I realised for the first time that it [...] had such an extreme effect, I was [...] arrested at the away match because [...] [there] was a fire on the ground, I took it up and brandished it, and they arrested me five minutes later and took me to the police and the patrol and then they showed me the Polaroids, [...] that clearly showed me with the thing. [...] I saw myself on this photograph with my bomber jacket and bald head, brandishing this thing, [...] and then I thought, hell, OK, if [somebody] feels provoked by me I shouldn’t be surprised really.” (Li03, militant radical, cf. the note under Fig. 3)

Only very rarely did the interviewees choose to abandon life within the scene and terminate the relationship to a group for the sake of their own – e. g. personal or professional – development.

32Cf. Appendix D for a summarised overview.

5 Summary and discussion

The study at hand compared the biographies of 39 individuals who can be assigned to the extreme left-and right wing left-and the Islamist scene³³. Our profound qualitative analysis of the extensive biographical data collected by the narrative interview method highlighted some distinctive features that will be trenchantly presented further down below. By and large and in accordance with the working hypothesis of the research project we realised that the interviewees, despite their different orientations, shared a great number of commonalities. Viewed from a more abstract angle and leaving aside concrete ideological contents it became clear that the ideologies and in particular the groups embracing them offer the individuals concerned a sense of support and orientation in their everyday lives. So it is small wonder that the biographical histories of our subjects presented identical basic psycho-social patterns of development, regardless of their endorsement of or affiliation to the respective ideologies or extremist groups.

Our most striking finding was that – regardless of their ideological orientation or whether or not they had committed offences associated with or motivated by any ideology – all interviewees had suffered from unstable familial conditions and tremendous stress throughout their development. As the coping strategies adopted by their families were usually dysfunctional, the interviewees had no choice but to fend for themselves most of the time, resorting largely to individually created solutions and coping strategies³⁴.

The interviewees later on employed in their social environment the dysfunctional strategies they had been taught by or copied from their families, thus often generating new conflicts like problems at school or social marginalisation. As their families, who were under much strain in the first place, were (mostly) unable to deal with their problems, the interplay between intra- and extra-familial conflicts frequently culminated in their (emotionally) withdrawing or separating from their family. For this reason, all interviewees attached particular importance to joining alternative social groups (mainly peer groups, outside of school) that matched their individual needs and coping patterns. Thanks to a lack of warmth and security at home and a concomitant sense of disorientation, the only social support the interviewees could find was within their inner clique. If nothing else, this turned out to be the root cause behind their susceptibility to group dynamics and the extremely close ties with their clique.

From a functional point of view these cliques frequently doubled as surrogate families, as is reflected also in their common parlance: The interviewees generally called their clique their“family”.

The (new) social identity – e. g. asskinheadorjihadist– that the interviewees assumed in their cliques quickly relegated their personal identity, including their problems, to the background, which proved favourable for the radicalisation process within or with the group. Even though the interviewees’

familial circumstances differed drastically in nature compared to those of the average population, they did not inevitably produce the specific conditions leading up to terrorism or extremism. Rather, the familial constellations that we identified closely resembled those of other delinquent adolescents who in spite of their situation do not socialise into terrorist or extremist milieus (cf. Göppinger 1997, 464;

Stelly/Thomas 2005, 257 et seq.; Kraus/Mathes 2010). The same is true for the interviewees’

perforated educational and sporadic employment careers (cf. Göppinger 1997, 459 et seq.). We deem

33In order to be able to compare the different milieus, we subdivided the interviewees regardless of their ideology into the four inductively formed categories ofterrorist, extremist, radicalandperson with extremist inclinations. This categorisation is not based on the police definition system ofpolitically motivated crimes(PMC), which is regulated uniformly throughout the Federal Republic; rather, it is the result of our qualitative analysis of the interviewees’ biographical histories (cf. for more information Chapter 3.2.2).

34They were not necessarily wilfully neglected by their parents; rather, their parents’ focus on improving the family situation was frequently so strong that their efforts to re-establish a stress-free atmosphere made them overlook the interviewees’ needs or caused them even more stress.

it noteworthy that, compared to the right and left wing oriented individuals, the Islamists in general succeeded considerably more often in completing school and advancing professionally, which is probably due to a need to compensate their perceived downward social movement in association with their immigrant background.

Across the board, we noticed a general inclination among the interviewees to associate violence with the establishment of power relationships and the manifestation of their masculinity, going hand in hand with denigrating others as e. g. “infidels” or “lazy bums”. As for the interviewees’ attitudes toward and judgement of acts of violence or offences which they themselves had committed, they employed a highly flexible system of standards: While they principally denounced and rejected violence exerted by others like, for instance, terrorist attacks or the use of violence by their parents, they tended to vindicate or trivialise their own acts of violence by somehow neutralising them (cf. in this contexttechniques of neutralization according to Sykes/Matza 1957). The detainees in particular had a distinctly warped perception of the degree of severity of violence, especially regarding violent acts which they themselves had committed.

In addition to the use of violence, alcohol and drug consumption were the most frequently pursued dysfunctional, intra-familial coping strategies that were usually continued outside the family milieu within the groups joined later on. While all study group subjects had, in equal measure, consumed and dealt in illicit drugs, we found major differences in alcohol consumption, the left wing and right wing oriented interviewees frequently reporting (excessive) alcohol consumption, in contrast to the Islamists who made a point of being abstinent. It was this abstinence that had often sparked off conflicts with their peers, which the interviewees interpreted as religious discrimination.

In addition to the above-mentioned biographical and socialisation aspects,violenceanddrugswere the topics most frequently mentioned and most intensely discussed by the interviewees. In keeping with the classical theories of learning (e. g. Sutherland 1968), the interviewees learned through contact with other group members how a specific group behaved and what attitude it had toward the exertion of violence as well as toward drug and alcohol consumption, constant contact reinforcing these attitudes throughout the group (cf. Burgess/Akers 1966). The group’s clearly defined rules on attitude, behaviour and identity concepts represented palpable guidance for the interviewees and exerted a strong attraction to them, which can be explained by the desire for order and predefined structures that so many of them had expressed. On top of this, these groups – as is typical of adolescent scene/cliques – offered the individuals an opportunity to make up for their own subjectively perceived shortcomings by e. g. wearing clothes typically worn by that scene and/or behaving accordingly, a phenomenon Gollwitzer/Wicklund described by the term or theoretical concept of ‘Symbolic Self-Completion’ (cf.

Gollwitzer/Wicklund 1985, 62 et seq.).

Talking about their journey to radicalisation, the interviewees mentioned personal in addition to environmental aspects, revealing a strong penchant for adventure and risk-taking and a distinct proclivity for self-fashioning. Some interviewees described how they drew attention to themselves by acts of denial or aggressive behaviour, for example, or by putting on humorous or “macho” allures (class clown), thus moving themselves into the focus of interest in different spheres of life. This compensatory behaviour, which was perceived by those around them as problematical and against the rules, was usually fully accepted within their clique. This is not surprising if we consider that we are talking about the link-ups of primarily young people with similar experiences and social deficits.

Most interviewees began to study the habitus of the relevant scene before joining it as their social milieu or peer group had already set typical examples and confronted them with representatives of the scene (e. g. on the way to school, at school, in social or religious clubs and associations, in the media).

Mostly this process was not triggered by a singular special key event but evolved over a prolonged period of time. Our study illustrates thatlower secondary schoolin particular seems to be “pooling the children from the lower social strata, from problem families and especially from immigrant and foreign families” (Hurrelmann1991) and thus is a particularly conflict-laden social hot spot characterised by a diverse range of simple-minded, highly polarising attitudes and behavioural patterns based on stereotypes revolving around enhanced self-worth and the simultaneous denigration of others (who are different, e. g. foreigners, Turks, antisocial elements, Nazis). As usual, this is accompanied by a strong perception of out-group homogeneity (cf. Aronson et al. 2004, 493).

As a general rule, the interviewees linked up with a clique or scene representative (joining the scene) on a long-term basis during a phase in their lives that they described as one of loneliness and disorientation. This phase could not always be attributed to concrete (critical) life events in the individuals’ biographies, but more often was incurred by psychological processes and emotions triggered by several incidents (chain of events) that did not necessarily seem to be of an inherently critical nature when watched from the sidelines. An analytical reconstruction and portrayal of these development processes is impossible without resorting to the interviewees’ subjective interpretations and perceptions. For example, moving to another town was interpreted as something positive by one individual to whom this meant a new beginning, whereas another one experienced the same thing as a negative interruption of his life because it entailed the loss of his friends. The original clique had a very special function in that it offered the individuals prefabricated interpretation and reasoning patterns which helped them to structure and perfectly sum up their own, still chaotic, attitudes and emotions (“catalytic” function). Their attitudes toward alcohol, drugs and violence as well as their capability to subordinate and control themselves played a major role for their integration into and further career within the scene. Extremely violent interviewees, for instance, did not remain party members for very long, and those persons whose alcohol consumption did not chime with the party culturemindset rather kept their distance from skinhead groups. Next to these personal factors, intra-scene occurrences (frequently also myths about the intra-scene) and global political events also determined the way the individuals and/or a clique or group developed.

The interviewees’ interest in the scene or its representatives was based not necessarily on ideology but mainly on the scene members’ appearance, dress codes and the respective image of the scene, clique or person. Beyond this, it sometimes happened that several members of a previously low-profile clique became radicalised, which invariably entailed a restructuring of the group (split-up due to individual members’ termination of relationship to the group).

In addition to purposeful recruiting (passive joining) we also observed that individuals were actively pushed to join by e. g. deliberately approaching a person that looked promising³⁵. According to our data, the deliberate approachis the most frequently described kind of making contact.

In summary, we can state that (orientation) models within the closer social environment of an individual were of paramount importance (cf. also Bandura 1976 in this context) and that the decision in favour of a certain extremist milieu is determined by accident and – along the lines of supply and demand – the availability of such models.

Religion and politics were of rather secondary importance typically increasing in the course of adolescence and frequently only in conjunction with the scene, if at all. When joining the respective scene, the individuals usually did not properly analyse the political aspects, their main focus being on

35It is possible in this context, however, that the person/group of interest sent out “advertising” signals that the interviewees did not consciously perceive or interpret as such.

social and emotional points of reference. The individuals’ chief motive for joining extreme (extremist) cliques was their search for social support, understanding and order, with the exception of those interviewees who socialised into the respective scenes only after they had completed their 28th year of age and who by all means displayed clearly defined (political) concepts or intentions when they made contact with the respective milieus. Accordingly, adolescents and young adults seemed to join rather for emotional and adventure-seeking than political motives, yet over time assumed patterns of politically associated lines of reasoning and legitimisation.

The Islamist interviewees, too, displayed political rather than religious patterns of reasoning, but we must remember in this context that many Muslims see religion and politics as closely intertwined and difficult to separate from one another. While the six interviewees of our study do not constitute an extensive body of data on the Islamist scene, our findings nevertheless raise the question, “To what extent are Islamist players driven by political more than religious motives?”. While it is true that they set high store by religion if they want to create a feeling of belonging and justify their behaviour, their prime objectives are political in nature, like e. g. changing global politics and promoting their own lifestyle (based on their religion) around the globe.

Many interviewees had committed offences even before joining the scene, with general criminal offences far outweighing the number of those perpetrated for political motives³⁶. Moreover, not all offences at first glance seemingly associated with political motives had actually been committed for ideological reasons. Frequently, motives turned out to be of a purely personal nature as individuals often gave priority to honour, group recognition or personal satisfaction. This was observed in all subgroups that we had formed, regardless of their ideologies (cf. Chapter 3.2.2), and emphasises the interviewees’ adventure-seeking and spur-of-the-moment mindedness when committing offences.

Above and beyond this, the interviewees subjectively did not perceive the crimes they committed as crimes thanks to the legitimisation mechanisms they had learned from the group.

Contrary to what we had expected, the transition from being an extremist willing to commit a crime to becoming a terrorist was an unplanned and unpredictable process, driven mainly by group-dynamics (e. g. a kind of competition culture within the group or distinct role constraints) or unpredictable events (accidentally obtaining explosives, meeting war-damaged persons from the Gaza strip, intra-scene events). As for the terrorists, we noticed that a potentially critical personal situation, their joining the scene and their identification with the scene’s ideology all happened within a brief period of time, which indicates a more dynamic radicalisation process; however, members of these extremist-terrorist scenes committed actual offences only after a certain time span had elapsed. Procuring or producing explosives was not planned in advance but mainly happened accidentally, taking the form of a “self-fulfilling prophecy” with a lot of media coverage, for example: Two individuals reported having obtained explosives thanks to favourable contingencies, with no concrete prior plans or intentions; in a third case, media coverage, presenting the interviewee and his collaborator as well-versed professionals, resulted in their preparing previously “poorly organised activities” “more professionally” later on, with the consequence that they started to deliberately set their minds on finding ways to procure explosives, and eventually successfully so. Moreover, we noted that participating in planning an attack was not necessarily tantamount to approving of it. The individuals frequently refrained from leaving the group because of their personal ties with another group member/other group members, group loyalty and the social pressure exerted by the group being the main drivers behind their activities that relegated to the background any potential second thoughts.

36Cf. Fn. 3

Those interviewees who did mention their intentions to terminate their relationship to the group and took concrete steps to this end did not always simultaneously renounce the ideology and withdraw from the social scene-related setting. They frequently continued to maintain contact even after their

“abandoning” of the ideology. This observation indicates the important social role the groups played -in comparison to ideology –, which also showed dur-ing the process of jo-in-ing. While the few withdrawal processes that we observed do not permit us to draw any reliable conclusions on the factors influencing a successful termination of relationship to extremist milieus, we clearly realised that the motives for joining were different from those for leaving: Before joining, the individuals were spurred by motives like finding social contacts (feeling of belonging, support) and systems capable of helping them cope with developments typical of that age and phase (especially: establishing reliable relationships outside of the family, finding one’s identity) and coming to terms with critical situations, whereas those terminating their relationships to the scene gave distinctly more priority to their personal identity (individual) and personal goals.

We can state by way of conclusion that

(1) Thepsycho-social dynamicsof the protagonists of milieus of different ideologies share some commonalities.

(2) The scene offers blueprints for solutions that help to compensate individual deficits and connect with others. Assuming a new “scene identity” (social identity, collective identity) relegates to the background one’s personal identity and the “old problems” associated with it.

(3) Terrorists and extremists frequently do not exhibit a distinct fundamental interest in politics or religionbut nevertheless emulate the lines of reasoning and views that typically go along with the respective ideologies and which they are exposed to in their (extremist) social milieus.

(4) The social characteristics of terrorists and extremistsdo not fundamentally differ from those of other perpetrators.

(5) Terrorist or extremist careers are often determined by accidental events (choice of scene, transition from extremist to terrorist).

A comparison of our research findings on extremism/terrorism with other research results reveals much congruence. Our analyses prove, for example, that an extremist/terrorist career is not instigated by a single key event (cf. e. g. Jäger/Böllinger 1981, 217; Schmidtchen 1981, 15). Our interviewees did not display any pathological features, either (cf. Jäger/Böllinger 1981, 235; Waldmann 1993, 7 et seq.; Daase 2001, 68; Taarnby 2003, 36 et seq.). All individuals of our group had experienced the same irregular developments and shown the same deviant behaviour during the first and second socialisation instances (family and school) as other offenders who did not necessarily become extremists or terrorists [cf. Göppinger 1997³⁷and Kraus/Mathes 2010].

37In particular: TheSyndrom familiärer Belastungen[syndrome of familial stress] (Göppinger 1997, 464), theSocioscolare Syndrom(ibid., 459), theSyndrom mangelnder beruflicher Angepasstheit[syndrome of lacking professional conformism] (ibid., 460), and theFreizeit Syndrom[recreational syndrome] (ibid., 461).

It is interesting to note that certain findings about left wing, right wing or Islamist extremism are also true for both the two other fields of study. We realised that seemingly politically motivated violence (in particular assault causing bodily harm) was more often than not induced by personal rather than ideological motives (e. g. Heitmeyer/Müller 1995; Frindte 2001; Schumacher/Möller 2007), and that social aspects and identity-related factors distinctly dominated ideological aspects at the time of joining the scene (e. g. Willems 1993). Across the board, the interviewees had already exerted (physical) violence before they had become ideologised (cf. Frindte et al. 2001).

We were surprised to find that both arson attacks and sometimes also (planned) bomb attacks resulted from a “combination of accidents and spur-of-the-moment ideas on the one hand and strategic planning and organisation on the other” (Willems 1993, 184).

6 Outlook

Our attempt at a comparative study of different terrorist and/or extremist milieus and groups viewed against the backdrop of the protagonists’ (in particular convicts’) biographies proved reliable and has promoted our understanding of the underlying processes. The 39 profoundly analysed biographies of individuals from the extremist right wing, left wing and Islamist milieus corroborated our working hypothesis that formed the basis of our research project, i.e. that all types of extremism and terrorism were predicated on identical situational conditions and processes, the different ideologies embraced by the various milieus notwithstanding. We found in the diverse terrorist and extremist milieus the same psycho-social mechanisms that can be observed in other milieus or scenes and that typically determine group (formation) processes. A terrorist or extremist therefore does not present himself as a psychopath withdrawn from earthly concerns even though he – at least temporarily – decides to embrace the extreme fringes out of all societal association types. These findings are also confirmed by the results of previous and recent studies (e. g. Jäger/Böllinger 1981; Baeyer-Katte et al. 1982;

Waldmann 1993; Taarnby 2003).

The radicalisation and ideologisation processes that we studied did not occur as isolated, independent processes cut off from developments in other areas of life (crucial: school, family, spare time) but constituted an integral part of the protagonists’ biographies. These processes developed extremely slowly and usually started before the individuals’ joining the respective extremist scene: formative experiences within the individuals’ inner social circle as well as critical events in life that their existing psycho-social support system was unable to adequately cope with gave rise to attitudes already indicating a penchant for one or another ideology. Meeting and mingling with like-minded peers was generally perceived as an “Aha!” experience, apparently summarising and structuring the chaotic emotions and thoughts that had already existed previously; beyond this, they were accepted and their ego boosted by the group. Formerly unrecognised or at best only vaguely associated relations and aspects suddenly seemed to be perfectly understandable. All three study groups, however, based their long-term relationships with the scene not only on spiritual but above all social aspects, as many publications on right wing extremism have already described (e. g. Willems et al. 1993;

Frindte/Neumann 2002).

In summary, we can state that all biographies studied describe persons who were severely hampered in their development and who, lacking a functioning family ensuring a healthy and successful psycho-social development, made extremely risky psycho-social contacts. The respective extremist-terrorist milieu and/or what the group had to offer were perceived as a welcome substitute for the functionally and

structurally unstable home, and the individuals concerned accepted – more subconsciously than consciously but always out of necessity – the concomitant problems and conditions impeding their general personal development. All analysed biographical histories showed a most desperate search for order and structure accompanied by both a delayed maturing and growing-up process or the inability to cope with development tasks typically occurring at this adolescent age. These observations also echo the expert opinions of the psychologists appointed in connection with the Sauerländer Terrorprozess(cf. Fn. 2), who concluded that “the [...] radicalisation was driven by [...] family crises and conflicts” (cf. Die Welt of 23/12/2009).

Analysing our results in the light of preventive measures and looking at the global picture, we see a need to devise and implement measures based on a holistic approach to preventing extremism. In this context, a holistic approach to dealing with this phenomenon above all implies a shift of focus from the ideologies conveyed by the extremist milieus to the obvious needs (e. g. broken family structures, experiencing social isolation, disturbed development) of those concerned.

Translating our research findings into potential preventative action and implementation strategies, the resulting need is to step up measures designed to help adolescents living in psychosocially distressed families and promote the personal and social competencies of children and adolescents, working in this context as closely and continually as possible with the individuals concerned. Even though the number of radicalised individuals is relatively small, the necessary preventive measures do not require any specific, target-group related concepts; it may suffice to sensibly combine conventional support measures like e. g. violence prevention measures and programmes designed to enhance their self-worth etc. Likewise, we must exploit the existing infrastructure of available support measures adequately so as to help with a tailored approach those children and adolescents who are at risk of becoming delinquents. Creating a stronger awareness for penalties among adolescents and promoting the early involvement of social supervisory authorities, the latter with the thought in mind to positively influence and, if possible, prevent the consolidation of highly cohesive structures in groups defiantly resisting change, could also be a sensible strategy.